The Queen I Am
by heartslogos
Summary: "Let it Be Me" verse. She does not see it, if she does she resfuses to acknowledge it. The Queen I am, the Queen I will be, the Queen I have kept smothered away inside me, the Queen she smothered within me. But he sees it. He's always seen it.


**Disclaimer: Don't own Gods. Sorry to disappoint.**

They say it is better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

What fallacy.

I hurt on the inside. Perhaps they can see it on the outside too. Well, not my mother, no never my mother. She never sees my pain.

But I must forgive her, she is my mother. I must forgive her, yet the me, the me that is inside, the me that no one but _he_ has seen refuses, rages, and rants against her, Demeter.

Had I never known him, I would have never felt this deep searing pain. I love him, but it hurts to love. No one had ever told me this, but it is also true that no one has ever told me _anything._

To her, to my mother, to Demeter, I am nothing but a girl. Even if Hades had never appeared, even if he had never loved me –oh what pain that would be, to have never found this central part of me!- there is still this _voice_ this _being_ within me that would have caused this change within me.

The change from girl to woman. From follower to Queen.

Even before I met him, before he expedited this change, this wonderful metamorphosis, I could hear it within me.

_I hate her._

_It's stifling._

_I'm burning and starving and drowning._

_Won't someone save me?_

_I'm hurt._

I didn't know what that was. I didn't know who it was. I thought it was some dark magic.

And then _he _came. I was alone and he came and I _understood._

I hate her_ because she is trying to chain me._ He takes me in his arm and drags me onto his chariot, I smell the blood from Aphrodite's arrow and I know he can't help it. I see the panic in his eyes and I sense that he's fighting. He doesn't want to chain me, he wants to let go but he also wants to hold on. He wants me, but he also wants me to be free. Demeter has never expressed so much emotion, such variety to me. Ever. It has always been control. Endless control.

It's stifling _because she's trying to smother this awakening. _He rides underground and my eyes open for the first time. I see that light and flowers are pretty, but gems and glowing flames are _beautiful._ I breathe in the smells of fresh clean, strangely crisp air that flows through underground tunnels. And I can see everything, I see his kingdom, I see death and pestilence and I see pain and he isn't trying to hide it at all. I see it and I'm learning and growing from it.

I'm burning and starving and drowning _because she's trying to tear me apart in too many directions._ When we reach his palace it's as if he's released from a daze. He lets go of me and I can see him wobbling and he grits his teeth in pain, clutching his chest. He calls servants to us and he leaves in a whirl of beautiful shadow, he tells me he's so, very, very sorry. I'm afraid but he does not try anything. He lets me be and tries not to scare me. He is gentle, stern and firm in his rules about my stay, but gentle in explaining why. He extinguishes the burn to know, he feeds my hunger for freedom, and he dries the slime of sugary words my mother has drenched me in.

Won't someone save me _from this bubble of flowers and spring?_ I look around me and realize that my mother lied. There is so much more than flowers and spring and sunlight. There's stone and winter and beautiful moonlight. Shadows that hide acts of burning passion, shadows that hide tears of pure joy, shadows that hide Demeter's angry ghost. He takes my hand one day and leads me to a high stone balcony over his kingdom. He teaches me and I accept his offer. I love him. This love does not exist in my mother's bubble. This love is dark and beautiful and makes me _breathe_ a sigh of relief. He lays onto me jewels, the flowers of his kingdom, that gleam eternally. He winds gold and silver on my limbs and graces me in silks of the most enchanting and brazen colors, colors so much more vivid than the pastel wildflowers Demeter has limited me to. I have become a woman. I have become beautiful.

I'm hurt _because she denies my growth._ My mother, Demeter, is so ignorant. She tells me to let all flowers follow their natural life, to grow, to live. But she denies this of me. She says that all girls are flowers. Then why should I not grow as well? Am I not as much a girl, a woman now, than anyone else? And he helps me realize it. I am so strong now. I have grown up and away from her, towards him, yet not towards him. I have grown independent, I can now choose my alliances, my heart is not for one, but for many. As I love my mother, as I love her and her flowers, I love Hades and his people as well. I am their Queen, I am his wife. In the end I have chosen them, I have not chosen her. I will bear with her, but I will not choose her. I have grown and I have broken her cage. With every touch, with every caress and feel, he has helped me grow.

I understand.

That voice that hisses inside me is me. It's not some outside magic, some dark influence. It is me, the Persephone that I have long denied. The Persephone that is strong and grown, the Persephone that I was always meant to grow into.

My mother would have me lie among daisies and look pretty and be empty headed until I become a daisy.

But he understands. He sees me, he's always seen me. The dark, sensual being I am becoming, have become.

He realizes that just as I love the sun and the flowers, I crave the dark of moonlight and the brilliance of his jewels. He realizes that I can exist on my own.

Hades would have me anywhere, at any time, anyway I choose. So I crown myself in beautiful gems and crimson gowns and rest among flowers of velveteen petals and deep enchanting gems that pierce the ground.

And here, listening to Demeter cry and shriek. It's heartbreaking.

A child should never see her parent cry. Parents aren't meant to cry in front of their children. I think it was when I saw her cry that I ceased seeing her as a power over me, it was at that moment the woman, the strong and sensual rosette within me, finally choked her daisy-clad shell of a girl to death.

She was not invincible. She was not all-powerful. She, as I am, was a woman. A mother is a being, a title, a woman is a being that I can strike. And so I _strike_.

Demeter thinks she can call me to her with promises of flowers and sunlight.

I remove each daisy, allowing them to fall and call roses to my hair. I call stones to me and crush them into powder and brush them over my cheeks. I summon a chain of metal to adorn my body. Demeter snarls through her tears and clenches the earth.

She is wrong. If I should ever crave the sun and flowers it is to share it with the one I love most. That is something she cannot understand, sharing.

I stand before her and I say nothing. There is nothing to say. She will not listen. I do not have to explain myself to someone who refuses to listen. She will not understand. I will not waste my time.

I have time,_ too much time_, before I see him again. It is not time I want to waste on some fruitless endeavor. It is something I want to use for him. I am always his queen. Day and night, spring and winter, in warmth or in cold, I am his queen. Perhaps that is what I was meant to grow into; perhaps that was what was growing within me.

There is a queen within me, choked behind the mask of a girl.

I break this mask, here and now and stand before my mother as the queen that I am, by birth and by right of marriage. She snarls that he can't be right for me, that I'm just a girl and that it's all too much for me.

No. It is too much for _her_. It's all I've ever needed. The freedom and power of being a Queen, _his_ Queen. The freedom to be who I am, the power of being able to love.

I look at her as I look at all those who come before us, Hades and me, cursing his name and begging my mercy. I look at her without passion, without love, without care. For I don't. I truly don't. Her words, the biased and angry words of an illogical woman –for Demeter has never grown into anything but a spiteful woman and a mother, flowers that cannot possibly hope to rise and kill a queen who has yet to find her complete and full potential- are no match to that of a Queen who knows that she in the right.

She doesn't see it. I don't think she ever will. The woman I have become. The Queen that I am, the Queen that I will be.

But he sees it, the love I have for him.

The love he sees bursting through every fiber of my being. In the clothes I wear, in the smiles I wear for him. In my every action.

But I hurt on the inside.

It hurts because I am bound to this woman, through blood and promises. I need her to let go. I need her to so I can leave. She will never let go.

It is during these times, these times when she becomes this monster who refuses to see reason, and I refuse to pacify her that it hurts most. Sometimes I wish I could go back to the times I did not know Hades. I always regret those thoughts immediately after.

It is better to have never loved at all than to have never felt complete love at all.

It is cruel, our fate.

We see the love in each other. We may only just breach the surface of this love before we are torn apart. I will never know what it's like to wake up next to him and not be afraid or incredibly saddened. I will never know that we have endless days together. I will never live with him knowing that I can be by his side and support him whenever he needs me. We are forever torn apart.

It leaves a scar on my heart. It takes a long time to heal and then it is ripped open again. All I can do is show him the love I have by donning his gems, his flowers, his colors. I must show him my love with physical reminders. So that he sees it when he cannot feel it.

It's cruel. She thinks it's justified. She thinks its punishment for having dared love in the first place. She thinks its punishment for him.

I don't think she understands it, the depth of this pain. She doesn't understand just how much I suffer as well. She doesn't see the damage she has done to us.

Perhaps someday she will. Perhaps someday I will live with him in peace. Perhaps someday we will heal. Perhaps someday we will have been with each other long enough for him to feel my love without needing to see it. Perhaps I will know his love without having to remember his touch.

Perhaps someday I will understand that it has better to have loved than to have never loved at all.

But until then, until the day that I can feel that sentiment for myself, I must content myself with the love he sees.


End file.
